Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title - TV Tropes

Judy: Yeah, that's right... Dr. Gary was gonna take my braces off. Have you seen the movie Face/Off? Well, this rhymes with that. This was Brace/Off.
Crispin: Yes! My favorite kind of story is one that rhymes with another, unrelated story.

• Most episodes of the English dub of Pokémon the Series (the first ones had quite expository titles). Including one that includes a pun based on the Japanese name of a character. (Barry's Busting Out All Over)
• Strawberry Marshmallow does this kind of rarely: "Violent Night", "The Hat's Meow"...
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt does this with every episode, referencing famous movies: "Catfight Club", "Pulp Addiction", etc...
• Kangoku Gakuen does this with several chapter titles, like Taxi Driver (Chapter includes a character talking to himself in the mirror) and other big films.

• There is an episode of Oye Golu called "Glove Actually", after the movie Love Actually.
• Simple Samosa:
  • The episode "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Shlagam" is named after the Bollywood film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.
  • The episode "Hum Aapke Hai Corn" gets its name from the Bollywood film Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!.

• Comedian Joe Lycett has named his two comedy tours That's the Way, A-Ha, A-Ha, Joe Lycett and I'm About to Lose Control and I Think Joe Lycett. (For the second, James Acaster had suggested he go the whole hog and call it I'm So Joe Lycett, and I Just Joe Lycett, I'm About to Lose Control and I Think Joe Lycett.)

• The Flash: An Impulse story in Flash 80-Page Giant has Bart freeing a swarm of rats from a genetics lab. The title is "The 5,000 Rats of Bartholomew Allen".
• The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis:
  • The title of the first miniseries' first issue is "Somewhere Over the Brain-Bow!".
  • The one for the second issue is "Liquid Diamond is Forever!".
  • For the first issue of the second miniseries, its title is "Slaves of New New York'".
  • The final issue is titled "The Read Menace", a reference to the 1949 film The Red Menace.
• Spider-Man: One memorable example was The Spectacular Spider-Man #25, "Carrion, My Wayward Son.", which featured the villain Carrion.

• One book of Dinoverse is titled "Raptor Without A Cause". It doesn't actually reference that in-story at all, though.
• Several of the Franny K. Stein books have titles that parody those of movies and books.
  • Attack of the 50-Ft. Cupid parodies Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
  • The Invisible Fran is a play on The Invisible Man.
  • The Fran That Time Forgot spoofs The Land That Time Forgot.
  • Frantastic Voyage parodies Fantastic Voyage.
  • The Fran with Four Brains is a play on The Man with Two Brains.
  • The Frandidate parodies The Candidate.
• Two of InCryptid's books, Magic for Nothing and Tricks for Free reference the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" in the title. (they don't have much else to do with the song itself, though)
• The four Merkabah Rider collections each have a title that is a play upon a the title of a popular Western. The books are:
  • High Planes Drifter
  • The Mensch with No Name
  • Have Glyphs, Will Travel
  • Once Upon a Time in the Weird West
• The Fifth Elephant is a play on The Fifth Element, although the book pastiches Hammer Horror and Anton Chekhov, rather than anything to do with that film.
• The seventh chapter of Juniper's Christmas is titled "These Boots Were Made For Walking".

• Adventures in Wonderland had a lot of punny titles. Such as "From Hare to Eternity" (From Here to Eternity), "Through the Looking Glasses" (Through the Looking Glass), "The Grape Juice of Wrath" (The Grapes of Wrath) to name a few.
• Every episode of Andy Barker, P.I. (except the first, which is just called "Pilot") is named after a mystery or thriller movie, such as "The Big No Sleep" and "The Lady Varnishes".
• The Angel episode "To Shanshu In LA", in which it eventually turns out that the Shanshu prophecy refers to a vampire becoming mortal and thus living and dying naturally.
• Best of Friends (1963):
  • The twelfth episode was titled "Desert Island Risks", a play on Desert Island Discs.
  • The final episode was titled "This Is Your Wife", a play on This Is Your Life.
• CSI-verse:
  • CSI has episodes entitled "Scuba Doobie-Doo," "Fur and Loathing," "Grissom vs. the Volcano," and "Eleven Angry Jurors," just to name a few.
  • CSI: Miami has "Freaks and Tweaks" and "Not Landing" for starters, plus a few to their own show and theme song: "Miami, We Have a Problem," "CSI: My Nanny," and "Won't Get Fueled Again."
  • Not to be outdone, CSI: NY gives us "Oedipus Hex," "A Daze of Wine and Roaches," "One Wedding and a Funeral," and "Blood Actually," among others.
  • CSI: Cyber gets in on the act with "URL, Interrupted" and "Gone in 6 Seconds."
• Diagnosis: Murder episode name "Write, She Murdered" is a play on the series title Murder, She Wrote.
• Many episodes of the Syfy series Eureka, especially in the third season. ("Bad to the Drone," "Show Me the Mummy," "Best in Faux.")
• Farscape did it a lot also, such as "John Quixote," "I Shrink Therefore I Am" and "Bringing Home The Beacon".
• The Foreign Affairs (1966) episode, "One of Our Islands is Missing" is a play on the film One of Our Aircraft Is Missing.
• Gossip Girl (2007): except for the pilot and the finale which is "New York, I Love You XOXO", every episode title is a pun based on a movie name.
• The Food Network cooking show Good Eats does this for most of its episodes: "Porterhouse Rules," "Citizen Cane," "The Egg Files," "Field of Greens," etc.
• iZombie does this in plenty of episode titles:
  • "Brother, Can You Spare a Brain?" is Titled After the Song "Brother, can You Spare A Dime?"
  • "Liv And Let Clive": The title is an allusion to the famous quote "Live and Let Live". Due to subject matter and rhyme, it could also be construed as an allusion to the James Bond movie Live and Let Die (which is itself alluding to the original phrase).
  • "Flight Of The Living Dead": Night of the Living Dead (1968)
  • "Virtual Reality Bites": Reality Bites
  • "Dead Air": Dead Air (2009)
  • "Patriot Brains": Patriot Games
  • "Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat": One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
  • "Blaine's World": Wayne's World
  • "Grumpy Old Liv": Grumpy Old Men
  • "Real Dead Housewife Of Seattle": The Real Housewives
  • "Even Cowgirls Get The Black And Blues": The Tom Robbins novel Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, or the movie based on it.
  • "The Hurt Stalker": The Hurt Locker
  • "Fifty Shades Of Grey Matter": Fifty Shades of Grey
• Series 2 of The Last of the Baskets has "The Hound of the Baskets", a play on The Hound of the Baskervilles.
• Season 2 Episode 2 of Loki (2021) is titled "Breaking Brad", punning on Breaking Bad.
• An episode of Lost is called "Some Like it Hoth," a reference to both Some Like It Hot and The Empire Strikes Back.
• The Masked Singer has "New Masks on the Block" and "Another Mask Bites the Dust".
• Mashin Sentai Kiramager episode titles are all references to films that Toei produced or distributed, most of which are either obscure to Western audiences or Lost in Translation due to an untranslatable pun, the referenced film having a Completely Different Title in English or both.^Example Among the few references that can be neatly retained in English...
  • #9 "The Karuta Path of My Youth" - Captain Harlock: The Arcadia of my Youth
  • #10 "The Girl Who Leapt After Shiguru" - the novel The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (adapted in live-action by Toei in 1983, but better known in the Anglosphere through the 2006 non-Toei anime film)
  • #16 "Marshmallow Royale" - Battle Royale
  • #37 "Sena 1/5" - Ranma ½ (Toei distributed some of the movies)
  • #42 "Battles Without Honor and Humanity" - Battles Without Honor and Humanity
• No Appointment Necessary (1977):
  • "The Shampoo Jungle" takes its title from the novel The Blackboard Jungle.
  • "The French Connexion" is a play on the film The French Connection.
• Only Fools and Horses had loads. Examples include:
  • "Diamonds are for Heather"
  • "Friday the 14th"
  • "From Prussia with Love"
  • "Danger UXD"
  • "Miami Twice"
  • "Sleepless in Peckham"
• Psych's episodes and post-series films punny titles keep with the show's 80s/90s-referential humor.
  • "Who Ya Gonna Call?" — Ghostbusters
  • "From the Earth to Starbucks" — From the Earth to the Moon
  • "Psy vs. Psy" — Spy vs. Spy
  • "Zero to Murder in Sixty Seconds" — Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
  • "There's Something About Mira" — There's Something About Mary
  • "The Old and the Restless" — The Young and the Restless
  • "Shawn (and Gus) of the Dead" — Shaun of the Dead
  • ""Murder?... Anyone?... Anyone?... Bueller?"" — Ferris Bueller's Day Off
  • "There Might Be Blood" — There Will Be Blood
  • "Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing" — "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing"
  • "Earth, Wind and... Wait for It" — Earth, Wind & Fire
  • "Any Given Friday Night at 10pm, 9pm Central" — Any Given Sunday
  • "Truer Lies" — True Lies
  • "Tuesday the 17th" — Friday the 13th
  • "High Noon-ish" — High Noon
  • "Bollywood Homicide" — Hollywood Homicide
  • "Let's Get Hairy" — Let's Get Harry
  • "You Can't Handle This Episode" — A Few Good Men
  • "The Head, the Tail, the Whole Damn Episode" — Jaws
  • "Mr. Yin Presents..." — Alfred Hitchcock Presents
  • "Romeo and Juliet and Juliet" — Romeo and Juliet
  • "Not Even Close... Encounters" — Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  • "Dual Spires" — Twin Peaks
  • "The Polarizing Express" — The Polar Express
  • "Shawn, Interrupted" — Girl, Interrupted
  • "Neil Simon's Lover's Retreat" — California Suite
  • "Indiana Shawn and the Temple of the Kinda Crappy, Rusty Old Dagger" — Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  • "Heeeeere's Lassie!" — The Shining
  • "Shawn and the Real Girl" — Lars and the Real Girl
  • "True Grits" — True Grit
  • "Santabarbaratown" — Chinatown
  • "No Country for Two Old Men" — No Country for Old Men
  • "100 Clues" — Clue
  • "Cirque Du Soul" — Cirque du Soleil
  • "Santa Barbarian Candidate" — The Manchurian Candidate
  • "Office Space" — Office Space
  • "Nip and Suck It!" — Nip/Tuck
  • "Lock, Stock, Some Smoking Barrels and Burton Guster's Goblet of Fire" — Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
  • "1967: A Psych Odyssey" — 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • "A Touch of Sweevil" — Touch of Evil
  • "A Nightmare on State Street" — A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
  • Psych 2: Lassie Come Home — Lassie Come Home
  • Psych 3: This Is Gus — This Is Us
• Quantum Leap (2022) has an episode called Ben, Interrupted, a reference to Girl, Interrupted.
• Shine a Light: The third episode, "The Robinson Mutiny", is a play on the novel The Caine Mutiny, but with Les' surname.
• Supernatural does it a lot. "Sam, Interrupted", "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester"...
• Sydney to the Max episode titles are all references to 90s pop culture. To name a few...
  • "Can't Dye This" - "U Can't Touch This".
  • "Who Let the Dogs In" - "Who Let The Dogs Out?"
  • "The Parent Track" - The Parent Trap (1998).
  • "The Lyin' King" - The Lion King (1994).
  • "Caved and Confused" - Dazed and Confused.
  • "Can't Hardly Date" - Can't Hardly Wait.
  • "There's Something About Zach" - There's Something About Mary.
  • "Nuthin' but a Dance Thang" - "Nuthin' but a 'G 'Thang".
  • "Never Been Pierced" - Never Been Kissed.
  • "Mo' Grandmas, Mo' Problems" - "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems".
  • "I Know What You Did Last Sleepover" - I Know What You Did Last Summer.
  • "Good Grade Hunting" - Good Will Hunting.
  • "Adventures in Babe-sitting" - Adventures in Babysitting.
  • "You've Got Female" - You've Got Mail.
  • "How Sydney Got Her Phone Back - How Stella Got Her Groove Back
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • "Tooth and Consequences" is a pun on Truth or Consequences.
  • "Take My Life...Please!" is a reference to Henny Youngman's famous joke "Take my wife...please!"
• Workaholics does this frequently, usually combining a normal phrase with something else. For example "The Business Trip", in which Ders goes on a business trip with Alice, and then they all trip on acid. "Temp-tress", when the guys are tempted by an attractive office temp, "Model Kombat", "True Dromance" and plenty more.
• The X-Files:
  • "The Unnatural" is a reference to The Natural.
  • "Post-Modern Prometheus" is a reference to Frankenstein's subtitle "The Modern Prometheus".

• A level in Ape Escape 3 is titled Howler Monkey's Unmoving Castle.
• All of the names of the levels in Dynamite Headdy are references to famous movies, such as "Mad Mechs", "Terminate Her Too", ”Stair Wars" and "Far Trek".
• The tasks and scrolls in MySims Kingdom frequently have this kind of name when they're not being boringly prosaic. For example, when you're told where to find a scroll that helps you make gears, the task is called "Gears of Where?"; when you get the scroll, it's called "Solid Gears of Metal".
• Chapter 4 of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is called "For Pigs the Bell Tolls".
• Predating the above example, Nintendo released For the Frog the Bell Tolls for the Game Boy.
• Some chapters of Viewtiful Joe and its sequel are titled like this, such as: "Some Like It Red Hot", "20,000,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "The Viewtiful Escape", "The Midnight Thunderboy", and "The Magnificent Five" from the first game.

• El Goonish Shive has the "Legends of Celida" storyline riffing on The Legend of Zelda and "Q&A 8 - The Lord Of The Q&As" (The Lord of the Rings).

• Gary: Landlord of the Flies:

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: The title of "Crouching Jimmy, Hidden Sheen" riffs on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, tying in with its nature as a Wuxia pastiche.
• The Babaloos: The episode dubbed in English as "The Adventurers" has its original French title translate to "Raiders Of The Lost Star".
• Big City Greens: Season 1 had "Paint Misbehavin'" ("Ain't Misbehavin'"). Season 2 had "I, Farmbot" (I, Robot) and "Chipocalypse Now" (Apocalypse Now).
• Many episodes of the Beetlejuice cartoon have these, usually as a Whole-Plot Reference. Often they're punny or gross versions of movie titles, such as "The Unnatural", "The Wizard of Ooze", and "It's a Wonderful Afterlife."
• Bob's Burgers: Many of the show's episodes reference movie titles or songs, like "Mutiny on the Windbreaker", "The Belchies", and "Live and Let Fly".
• Clone High: The title of the episode "Anxious Times at Clone High" is based on Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
• On Danger Mouse, there was "Close Encounters Of The Absurd Kind", "The Good, the Bad and the Motionless," "Ice Station Camel," "The Spy Who Stayed In With a Cold," and "Ee-Tea!" among many.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy has a number of episodes like this, such as "The Day the Ed Stood Still".
• Many later episodes of The Fairly OddParents! have this type of title, such as "Two and a Half Babies", "The Bored Identity", "Cosmonopoly", and "Finding Emo".
• Fanboy and Chum Chum had episode titles such as "The Janitor Strikes Back", "No Toy Story", and "Little Glop of Horrors". One episode was not only named "A Bopwork Orange" but also parodied the classic film. Another episode, "Fanboy Ahoy!" uses the same format as the Working Title of SpongeBob SquarePants: SpongeBoy Ahoy!.
• Futurama does this pretty much every other episode. In Season 1 alone, we have "I, Roommate", "Love's Labors Lost in Space", "Fear of a Bot Planet", "A Fishful of Dollars", "My Three Suns", "Hell Is Other Robots", "A Flight to Remember" and "Fry and the Slurm Factory".
• A few Looney Tunes shorts made after the "Golden Age" have these, such as "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers" or "The Whizzard of Ow".
• My Adventures with Superman:
  • "You Will Believe a Man Can Lie": Doubling as a Mythology Gag, named after the Tagline of Superman: The Movie, "You'll believe a man can fly."
  • "Kiss Kiss Fall in Portal": Named after the opening lyrics of "Sakura Kiss", the opening theme of Ouran High School Host Club.
  • "More Things in Heaven And Earth": Named after an iconic line from Hamlet.
  • "Fullmetal Scientist": Named after Fullmetal Alchemist.
  • "The Machine Who Would Be Empire": Named after The Man Who Would be King.
  • "Olsen's Eleven": Named after Ocean's Eleven.
  • "Pierce the Heavens, Superman!": Named after the Arc Words of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, "Your drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens!"
• Several episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Starting with "Boast Busters".
  • There's also the episode "Spice Up Your Life", whose title comes directly from a Spice Girls song. Up to season 4 there are no longer original titles.
• Oscar's Orchestra has a couple, most notably "Bach To The Future", "Star Tours", and "Raiders Of The Lost Park".
• A few of The Owl House's episode titles are puns on the titles of famous works, specifically:
  • S1E1 "A Lying Witch and a Warden"
  • S1E3 "I Was a Teenage Abomination"
  • S1E6 "Hooty's Moving Hassle"
  • S1E9 "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" — A play on the adage "nothing ventured, nothing gained"
  • S1E11 "Senses and Insensitivity"
  • S1E17 "Wing It Like Witches"
  • S2E4 "Keeping Up A-Fear-Ances"
  • S2E5 "Through the Looking Glass Ruins"
  • S2E18 "Labyrinth Runners"
  • S2E19 "O Titan, Where Art Thou?"
• Pelswick had a few, such as "Invasion of the Buddy Snatchers".
• Phineas and Ferb has several. For example, It's a Mud, Mud, Mud, Mud World, Night of the Living Pharmacists, Journey to the Center of Candace, Meapless in Seattle, etc.
• A lot of the episode titles in Ready Jet Go!, especially those in Season 2, are references to vintage popular culture. Just some of them are "My Fair Jet", "From Pluto With Love", "Magnet, PI", "Pet Sounds", etc.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle made use of pop culture pun titles with their episode titles. Among them were "Visit to a Small Panic" (the movie "Visit to a Small Planet"), "This Goon For Higher" ("This Gun For Hire"), "Pantomime Quisling" (TV show "Pantomime Quiz") and "Mourning Becomes Electra-cuted" (the book "Mourning Becomes Electra").
• Every episode of Special Agent Oso is a pun on a James Bond movie.
• A large number of The Simpsons are puns on other works of fiction, often ones completely irrelevant to the episode's plot. Often they'll play on Homer's catchphrase "d'oh", but in keeping with the writers having originally called it an "annoyed grunt," it sometimes intimated thus — hence "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious," "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" and "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-bot."
• The Sofia the First episode name "Gone with the Wand" is a pun on that of Gone with the Wind.
• South Park:
  • "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", to Beavis And Butthead.
  • "Up the Down Steroid": The title comes from the book Up the Down Staircase.
  • "Margaritaville" is a reference to the Jimmy Buffett song of the same name.
  • "Insheeption" to Inception.
  • "HumancentiPad" to The Human Centipede.
  • "A Song of Ass and Fire" to A Song of Ice and Fire.
  • "The Problem with a Poo" to The Problem With Apu, a documentary on Apu in The Simpsons.
• Uncle Grandpa has the episode "Big in Japan", whose title comes from a Alphaville song.
• Gravity Falls has a few, including "The Hand that Rocks the Mabel", "The Time Traveler's Pig", "Soos and the Real Girl", "Little Gift Shop of Horrors" and "The Stanchurian Candidate".
• Nearly every episode outside the half-hour specials of The Loud House has this, though it has become less common in later seasons. Some specific examples include "Pulp Friction" and "Breaking Dad".
• Too many to list in Rick and Morty. It usually involves some lame pun with Rick and Morty's names, like "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat".
• Let's Go Luna!: The episode "The Kabaddi Kid" has a title referencing The Karate Kid.
• Wunschpunsch has an episode named "Car Wars".
• Pretty much every episode (if not all) of DreamWorks’ Harvey Street Kids. Some examples come from War and Trees, The Secret Strife of Pets, Boy Story, and Citizen Cape just to name a few.